Yosvany Terry
Since arriving in New York City in 1999. Cuban saxophonist, percussionist, and composer Yosvany Terry “has helped redefine Latin jazz as a complex new idiom,” says The New York Times.
Born in 1976 into an illustrious musical family in Camaguey, Cuba, Yosvany Terry is an internationally acclaimed composer, saxophonist, percussionist, bandleader, educator and cultural bearer of the Afro-Cuban tradition. After immersing himself in the European classical tradition at Havana’s prestigious National School of Arts (ENA) and Amadeo Roldan Conserva-tory he went on to perform with major figures in every realm of Cuban music, including celebrated nueva trova singer/guitarist Silvio Rodriguez, pianists Chucho Valdes and Frank Emilio, and Don Poncho y Los Terry, the band led by his father, violinist and shekere master Eladio “Don Poncho” Gonzales.
From his earliest days in New York, Terry has been embraced by the jazz and contemporary music community, playing with Branford Marsalis, Rufus Reid, Dave Douglas, Steve Coleman, Roy Hargrove, Henry Threadgill, trumpeter Avishai Cohen, Jeff “Tain” Watts, Gonzalo Rubalcaba, Taj Mahal and the Eddie Palmieri Afro-Caribbean Sextet. While best known as a blazing improviser, he’s rapidly gaining renown as a composer, bandleader and educator with a string of high-profile awards, appointments and commissions. In 2015, Terry was named a recipient of the prestigious Doris Duke Impact Award, and was hired by Harvard University as Director of Jazz Ensembles and Senior Lecturer on Music. He has received recent commissions from San Francisco’s Yerba Buena Garden Festival (“Noches de Parranda” for 12-piece ensemble with the support of The MAP Fund), the French-American Jazz Exchange with support from the Mid Atlantic Arts Foundation and Doris Duke Charitable Foundation (“Ancestral Memories” with French pianist Baptiste Trotignon), and Harlem Stage (the score for the opera “Makandal,” premiering in 2017).
Terry also received a grant from Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors and New York State Music Fund to create Afro-Cuban Roots: Yedégbé, resulting in his latest release, 2014’s Grammy Award-nominated “New Throned King” (5Passion). The music is based the cantos and rhythms of the Arará people of the eastern Cuban province of Matanzas, who hail from the Dahomey kingdom’s Fon culture in what is now Benin. His previous album, 2012’s “Today’s Opinion” (Criss Cross), was selected as one of the Top 10 Albums of the Year by the New York Times’ Nate Chinen. Terry’s latest project, The Bohemian Trio, is a genre-defying contemporary music ensemble based in New York slated to release its first album in the fall of 2016.
For performance videos of programs, go to Media Page.
Yosvany Terry & Afro-Cuban Roots: Ye-Dé-Gbé
Yosvany Terry – alto & soprano saxophones, chekeré
Osmany Paredes – piano
Yunior Terry – bass
Justin Brown – drums
Pedro Martinez – percussion & lead vocals
Roman Diaz – percussion
Sandy Perez – percussion
Francisco Barroso – dance
Yosvany Terry Quintet
Yosvany Terry- alto & soprano saxophones, chekeré
Michael Rodriguez- trumpet
Manuel Valera- piano
Matt Brewer- bass
Ludwig Afonso- drums
Yosvany Terry Quartet
Yosvany Terry- alto & soprano saxophones, chekeré
Osmany Paredes- piano
Yunior Terry- bass
Obed Calvaire- drums
PHOTO
Govert Dressien
Laura Razzano
VIDEOS
Yosvany Terry Quintet
Yosvany Terry/Baptiste Trotignon Ancestral Memoris EPK
Video: Jazz in Marciac 2017
Yosvany Terry/Baptiste Trotignon Ancestral Memories Quartet
Yosvany Terry & Afro-Cuban Roots: Ye-Dé-Gbé